Twelve Nooses E-Book

Richard Blakemore

• Herausgeber: Cora Buhlert
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Before Kurval became King of Azakoria in the year of the forked serpent, he was commander of a mercenary company in service to his predecessor King Orkol.

While helping to bring the rebellious northern provinces back under Orkol's heel, Kurval is ordered to hang twelve innocent young women as an example to the rebels.

Kurval is disgusted by Orkol's cruelty. But can he find a way to save the twelve young women from the gallows? And dare he defy King Orkol?

The new sword and sorcery adventure by two-time Hugo finalist Cora Buhlert and her occasional alter ego, 1930s pulp writer Richard Blakemore. This is a novelette of 14200 words or approx. 50 print pages in the Kurval sword and sorcery series, but may be read as a standalone. Includes an introduction and afterword.

Leseprobe

Twelve Nooses

by Richard Blakemore

Bremen, Germany

Copyright © 2022 by Cora Buhlert

All rights reserved.

Cover image by © Tithi Luadthong via Dreamstime

Cover design by Cora Buhlert

Pegasus Pulp Publications

Mittelstraße 12

28816 Stuhr

Germany

www.pegasus-pulp.com

Introduction

by Cora Buhlert

Nowadays, pulp fiction writer Richard Blakemore (1900 — 1994) is best remembered for creating the Silencer, a masked vigilante in the style of the Shadow or the Spider, during the hero pulp boom of the 1930s.

Furthermore, Richard Blakemore is also remembered, because he may or may not have been the real life Silencer, who stalked the streets of Depression era New York City, fighting crime, protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty just like his pulp counterpart.

The mystery surrounding the Silencer has long overshadowed Richard Blakemore’s other works. For like most pulp writers, Blakemore was extremely prolific and wrote dozens of stories in a variety of genres for Jakob Levonsky’s pulp publishing empire. Blakemore’s work spans the full range of the pulps, from crime stories via westerns, war and adventure stories via romance to science fiction and fantasy. Indeed, the sheer amount of stories Richard Blakemore wrote during the 1930s refutes the theory that he was the Silencer, for when would he have found the time?

Of the many non-Silencer stories Richard Blakemore wrote, the most interesting are his forays into the genre now known as sword and sorcery.

Richard Blakemore was an acknowledged fan of Weird Tales and particularly admired the works of Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and C.L. Moore. And so, when Jakob Levonsky started up his own Weird Tales competitor called Tales of the Bizarre, Blakemore immediately jumped at the chance to write for the magazine and created Thurvok, a warrior hero in the mould of Conan, Kull and Bran Mak Morn.

Thurvok first appeared in the story “The Valley of the Man Vultures” in the first issue of Tales of the Bizarre in 1936 and quickly became a regular feature of the magazine. Pegasus Pulp Publishing has recently brought the adventures of Thurvok and his companions back into print.

However, the Thurvok series is not the only contribution that Richard Blakemore made to the budding sword and sorcery genre. For in the July 1937 issue of Tales of the Bizarre, Richard Blakemore introduced a new character called Kurval in the novelette “King’s Justice”.

Kurval is a somewhat older and wiser character than Thurvok and his friends. He is described as a barbarian from beyond the sea who has seized the throne of the kingdom of Azakoria after slaying the previous king.

Whereas the Thurvok stories are characterised by banter, adventures, swordplay and battles with monsters, the Kurval tales are more serious and mostly deal with Kurval’s struggles to be a good and just king, even as he finds himself faced with subjects who don’t respect him as well as with would-be plotters and assassins. Though Kurval does fight monsters, too, on occasion.

When asked why he chose to create a new sword and sorcery hero in Kurval and didn’t just go the Conan route and make Thurvok into a king, Richard Blakemore answered, “I had an idea for a story — the story that eventually became ‘King’s Justice’ — that simply didn’t fit into the framework of the Thurvok series. For Thurvok is quite happy being a wandering sellsword, thank you very much, and Meldom, much as I like him, should not be placed in any position of authority. And so I created a new character. Initially, I intended for Kurval to appear only in that one story. But I liked him and so I continued to use him for stories which didn’t fit Thurvok and friends.”

When the reader is introduced to Kurval in “King’s Justice,” he is already King of Azakoria. However, Blakemore later went back and wrote several prequels which feature Kurval before he became king. “Twelve Nooses” is one of these prequels. In fact, it is the story which recounts how Kurval turns from mercenary captain in the service of King Orkol of Azakoria to striking for the throne himself.

Kurval’s friend and fellow mercenary Tsabo, introduced in “The Frozen Citadel,” also reappears in a more substantial role. “Twelve Nooses” also features Lord Vangenard, who appears as one of Kurval’s commanders in the stories set during his reign, and gives us some background about the character.

When asked how “Twelve Nooses” came about, Richard Blakemore replied that the story was inspired by the legend of the burghers of Calais, which coincidentally also inspired the Thurvok story “The Forest of the Hanged”.

“I’ve been fascinated by the story of the Burghers of Calais ever since I saw Auguste Rodin’s sculpture commemorating them in Calais,” Blakemore said in an interview, “And like everything that fascinates me, it eventually found its way into my fiction.” Blakemore likely saw the statue as a young soldier in World War I.

Pegasus Pulp Publishing is proud to present to you the adventures of Kurval, King of Azakoria, for the first time in print since 1930s. So buckle up and prepare to accompany Kurval and Tsabo as they face…

…Twelve Nooses.

Twelve Nooses

by Richard Blakemore

“Before Kurval became King of Azakoria in the Year of the Forked Serpent, he was commander of a mercenary company in the employ of King Orkol, the man he would eventually slay to take the crown himself. The events that made Kurval turn against Orkol to strike for the throne himself began with the siege of Fredegond during the campaign against the northern rebels”

From the Chronicles of Azakoria by Ragur, Count Falgune

I. Ruthless Swords

Kurval, commander of the Ruthless Swords, watched impassively as the hanged rebel leaders twitched their last.

Lethal fighters and skilled with blade, bow and axe the elite Azakorian Blood Guards might be, but they were lousy hangmen. And so the execution of the rebel leaders had been botched and the men had suffered more than necessary, struggling on the gallows until they finally expired. Kurval wasn’t sure whether this was due to incompetence or design.

He disapproved, at any rate. The rebels had gone bravely to their deaths and had not flinched once, when facing the noose. The least the victorious Azakorians could do was grant them a swift end.

Not that Kurval had any say in the matter. The Ruthless Swords were mercenaries, selling their services to whoever was willing to pay for them. Right now, they were in the employ of King Orkol of Azakoria, putting down an uprising in the northern province of Stedinge.

It was a lengthy, bloody and brutal campaign, for the northern edge of Azakoria was mostly marshland, full of treacherous swamps and deadly bogs and beset by all sorts of vermin besides. Random attacks by rebels were common and the Northerners were fierce warriors, so retaking the fortified villages and towns always involved a lot of fighting and bloodshed.

Worse, Kurval strongly suspected that the people of Stedinge were in the right. After all, their ancestors had colonised these treacherous marshes and bleak moors by the work of their hands and the sweat of their brows. It was truly their land, land for which they’d toiled and bled, land granted to them by royal decree. If not for the hard work of those peasants, Orkol would rule over a stretch of uninhabited wasteland.

From what Kurval had seen, Orkol was a cruel tyrant and notorious wastrel who bled his own people dry in order to finance palaces and swift horses, fine clothes and jewels, seraglios and orgies. No wonder that the people of Stedinge had enough of his rule. Especially after Orkol had broken the treaty that guaranteed them lower taxes and a degree of autonomy in exchange for colonising the wasteland that was the northern edge of Azakoria.

Kurval had seen kings like Orkol before, had even served under them. They inevitably came to a bloody end, once the people had had enough and became so desperate that even the threat of the gallows, the stake or the cross could no longer deter them. The people of the marshlands were at that point and the rest of the kingdom would eventually follow and then Orkol would meet his bloody and well deserved end. Kurval planned not to be here, when it came to that — at least not on Orkol’s side.